


I Caught Fire

by incidental



Category: Killing Eve (TV 2018)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-06
Updated: 2021-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-19 10:00:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29872950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/incidental/pseuds/incidental
Summary: "In your eyes, I lost my place, could stay a while, and I'm melting, in your eyes, like my first time that I caught fire, just stay with me, lay with me now..." Immediately after the S3 finale, Eve and Villanelle find somewhere to rest. Inspired by the song "I Caught Fire" by The Used.
Relationships: Eve Polastri/Villanelle | Oksana Astankova
Comments: 18
Kudos: 122





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for all the great feedback so far! They’re very encouraging and definitely get me to write more quickly. :)

_"In your eyes I lost my place  
_Could stay a while, and I’m melting_  
_In your eyes like my first time  
_That I caught fire  
_Just stay with me, lay with me now…"____

____“What now?”_ _ _ _

____Villanelle had turned around. For an awful, gut-wrenching moment, Eve thought she would keep walking--across the bridge, around the corner, and out of her life forever. (And that would have been easier, almost anything would be easier than this, and she knew that, and yet, and yet.) But she didn’t. She turned around. Their eyes locked, and they walked towards one another, drawn in as though there were some force beyond them at work. Like they couldn’t have kept walking away even if they tried._ _ _ _

____(They didn’t try--Eve didn’t anyway, not really. This thing with Villanelle had always been total id, pure desire, the act of giving herself exactly what she wanted and damn everything and everyone else.)_ _ _ _

____When they were within arm’s reach of one another, they stopped, and Villanelle asked the question: “What now?”_ _ _ _

____“I don’t know,” Eve answered slowly, honestly. “I need time to think.”_ _ _ _

____“Well, let’s not do that out in the open,” Villanelle said, casting a wary eye over Eve’s shoulder and then her own. “Come on, I know a place.” She placed her hand on Eve’s upper arm and steered her around, walking off the bridge and down a busy London street, joining a bustling crowd of strangers ostensibly not that different from themselves._ _ _ _

____But we are different, Eve thought to herself as they walked briskly. We’re a completely different kind of person, and they have no idea. The idea gave her a funny little thrill in the area of her navel._ _ _ _

____“Here,” Villanelle said suddenly as they approached a set of glass doors revealing a stark, brightly lit hotel lobby. Eve read the sign, then turned a quizzical eye to Villanelle._ _ _ _

____“A Travelodge?” she asked. Villanelle shrugged._ _ _ _

____“What? The bedspreads are always clean,” she said defensively as she pulled open the front door, bells tinkling. “You would be shocked, the things in some of the hotels I’ve been to.” Within a few minutes she had booked a room while Eve stood just behind her and nodded politely when addressed._ _ _ _

____Key in hand, they walked up two flights of stairs and found themselves in a modest--and yes, Eve had to admit, clean--room, sparsely decorated with a dresser, a chair, two night stands, and, Eve observed with an increasingly hot face, one large bed. She didn’t dare look Villanelle straight in the face, but saw out of the corner of her eye that Villanelle also looked a bit hot under the collar herself._ _ _ _

____“It was the only one they had on such short notice,” she muttered as she locked the multitude of locks on the inside of their door. Eve chose not to respond, and instead just dropped her purse and coat on the floor, sighing heavily. Suddenly she felt as though she had been awake for years, and it seemed that she could barely keep her eyes open. She sat on the edge of the bed and pulled her shoes off, groaning with pleasure as she wiggled her toes. Villanelle simply stood in the corner of the room with her arms at her side, watching Eve with almost cautious eyes._ _ _ _

____“So--”_ _ _ _

____“I don’t want to talk about what comes next right now,” Eve said before Villanelle could start. “I don’t want to talk about The Twelve, or Helene, or Konstantin, or anything. I just want to lie down. Can we just do that?”_ _ _ _

____“--uh, I was just going to say that I’m going to take a shower,” Villanelle said. “But sure, we can do that, yes.”_ _ _ _

____“Oh,” Eve said, feeling a little sheepish. “Okay, sure.” Villanelle shed her mustard coat on the corner of the bed and disappeared into the bathroom. Out of curiosity, Eve pulled the coat over into her lap and looked to see where it was made. She was surprised to find that the tags had been cut out. She looked at the shoes on the floor next to the bed, and saw that the inserts with the brand name had been removed from the insides. She thought it was odd, but let it go, lying back on one side of the bed and closing her eyes. She did not open them again until she heard the bathroom door open and Villanelle emerged, in only her bra and underwear with her clothes folded in her arms._ _ _ _

____“Villanelle,” Eve began, looking up and realizing that Villanelle was in her underwear, “why--oh, wow, um--sorry, why do your coat and shoes have the name tags removed?”_ _ _ _

____“All of my clothes have the tags removed,” she responded, opening the closet door and pulling out hangers. “Standard FSB operating procedure. That way if you die, your identity is even harder to trace.”_ _ _ _

____“Oh.”_ _ _ _

____“Not that it matters, because according to Russian government, I don’t exist. However,” Villanelle said, holding up the blouse she was in the process of hanging, “my style is so exceptional that nobody could doubt these are designer.”_ _ _ _

____“Uh huh,” Eve said with a chuckle. Villanelle smiled, then yawned._ _ _ _

____“I’ll sleep in the chair,” she said, making her way towards it._ _ _ _

____“You don’t--um, you know, have to do that,” Eve said tentatively. “There’s enough room for both of us.” Villanelle raised her eyebrows a little._ _ _ _

____“Are you sure? Because I’ve slept in worse, believe me.”_ _ _ _

____“It’s okay, really,” Eve said, rising from the bed and pulling the coverlet back._ _ _ _

____“You can’t sleep in those,” Villanelle said just as Eve was about to slip under the covers._ _ _ _

____“What?” she said. Villanelle approached her side of the bed._ _ _ _

____“You can’t sleep in those,” she repeated. “They will be wrinkled, and I don’t know when we will be able to go back for your things. You will look homeless.” Eve snorted, then felt all the air leave her lungs as Villanelle reached out for the front of her shirt and began undoing the buttons._ _ _ _

____“I, uh, I can…” Eve began, but nothing else came out. Villanelle undid each button slowly, clearly relishing the opportunity to undress her. When she pulled the shirt down over Eve’s shoulders, the tips of her fingers grazed the skin there and made her arms erupt in gooseflesh. She took a small gasping breath in, and while Villanelle hung her shirt, she unzipped her pants and pulled them off before Villanelle could. She did not think she could control herself if Villanelle unzipped and removed her pants for her. She folded them hastily and set them on the dresser._ _ _ _

____Now they were face to face in their bras and underwear, and Eve could practically feel Villanelle’s eyes travel the geography of her body. But for all the desire etched into her face, Villanelle simply gave a small nod and turned away, walking to her side of the bed and pulling the blankets back. Eve stood still for a few breaths longer, wondering what the hell she was doing before ignoring the question entirely and slipping into the sheets._ _ _ _

____Eve lay back on the pillows and pulled the covers up, looking temporarily as though she were lying in the morgue with a sheet covering her. She turned to the side and watched Villanelle climb into bed, so lithe that she hardly felt the bed move with her weight. She punched her pillow into a more accommodating shape and eased into it, eyes trained on Eve._ _ _ _

____For a while they lay like that, eyes hungry, watching each other in silence. Neither knew what, if anything, there was to be said. The stretch of sheets between them, maybe 18 inches in all, felt simultaneously tremendous and nearly nonexistent. Eve knew that if she just reached her hand out she could cross it with no effort, none at all._ _ _ _

____“Eve,” Villanelle finally whispered into the silence, shattering it. “Can I ask you something?”_ _ _ _

____“Sure,” Eve said hesitantly, afraid of what the question might be._ _ _ _

____“Can you hold me?”_ _ _ _

____Of all the questions she was anticipating, that was not one of them._ _ _ _

____“Um, sorry, what?” she sputtered, and a flush rose to Villanelle’s cheeks._ _ _ _

____“I asked if you could hold me,” she repeated, so quietly that Eve could hardly hear her. “Not for sex,” she added quickly. “Just… I haven’t had anyone do that in a long time, and I could really use it.” She looked ashamed to admit it, to admit the great flaw that was being human--to acknowledge that she wasn’t just a creature of chaos and pain and sex and death, but a person, who needed basic human things.._ _ _ _

____“Yes,” Eve breathed. “Here.”_ _ _ _

____Villanelle and Eve met in the middle of the bed, Eve snaking her arms around Villanelle and her insides were immediately alight with the sensation of her warm, bare, dewy skin. Villanelle pressed her own body against Eve’s and filled in every space, so that there was no light between them. Villanelle pressed her face into the curve of Eve’s neck and collarbone, breathing in the smell of her hair and the slight musk of her earlier sweat. Eve rested her cheek against Villanelle’s slightly damp hair, arms wrapped around her, running one hand lazily up and down her back. After a while, she suspected Villanelle might have fallen asleep, and was therefore surprised when she both heard and felt her speak._ _ _ _

____“Thank you, Eve,” she muttered. “You make me feel like… well, you make me feel, that’s all.”_ _ _ _

____“You’re welcome,” Eve responded, and as she said it she pressed her lips against Villanelle’s head. Villanelle lifted her head and trunk slightly so that she could see Eve’s face, her lips barely parted, eyes fixed on hers, looking something like joy._ _ _ _

____Before she could doubt herself or the moment, Villanelle kissed the soft bow of Eve’s lips. It was gentle and chaste, which was perhaps the most shocking part to Eve aside from the act of the kiss itself. That Villanelle could do something so innocent as that peck on the lips, so gentle, it was entirely unexpected. She immediately lay her head back down on Eve’s shoulder, unable to look her in the eyes anymore._ _ _ _

____“I’m sorry if that was inappropriate,” Villanelle said gruffly. “I can still sleep in the chair, if you’d like.” Eve touched her lips with the hand that wasn’t on Villanelle’s back, looking bemused, and shook her head slowly._ _ _ _

____“No, don’t apologize,” she said. “I didn’t mind. And I want you here, next to me. I feel safer.”_ _ _ _

____With those words Villanelle felt her heart grow three sizes. Eve wanted her in her bed, Eve accepted her kiss, Eve felt safe when she slept next to her._ _ _ _

____“That’s a funny thing to say, considering as we’ve both tried to kill each other,” Villanelle chuckled, and she felt Eve laugh underneath the weight of her._ _ _ _

____“I suppose that’s true,” Eve allowed. “But still… I do.”_ _ _ _

____Villanelle sighed and rolled off Eve’s body, content to lie alongside her and rest her head on Eve’s pillow, their noses touching, hands holding onto one another._ _ _ _

____“I make your life more difficult,” Villanelle said. Eve nodded slightly._ _ _ _

____“Yes,” she agreed._ _ _ _

____“You are in much more danger than you were before you came into my life,” Villanelle continued._ _ _ _

____“That’s true,” Eve agreed._ _ _ _

____“And yet…” Villanelle began, trailing off when the words didn’t come._ _ _ _

____“And yet,” Eve repeated._ _ _ _

____More silence._ _ _ _

____“I don’t know what I would do without you, Eve,” Villanelle said. “Things don’t seem to go very well for me when you’re not here.”_ _ _ _

____“Then don’t make me chase you anymore,” Eve said. Villanelle smirked._ _ _ _

____“I don’t intend to,” she said. “But it’s a bad habit. I’m trying to quit.” She stared into Eve’s impossibly dark, almond shaped eyes, and saw herself reflected there, over and over again. She felt her fingers entwined with Eve’s own, felt Eve’s chest rise as hers fell, and vice versa. They felt like one person in that bed._ _ _ _

____“I don’t ever want to leave here,” Eve breathed, her voice catching. “It’s too hard out there.”_ _ _ _

____“I know,” Villanelle said, stroking Eve’s cheek gently. “Life before you was simpler. Kill, spend, kill, spend, fuck, kill, et cetera. Now I am stuck with all these feelings I did not have before. Not that I’m complaining,” she added hastily. “I just… it was easier, then. Simpler. Things are not so simple now.”_ _ _ _

____“Are you sorry?” Eve asked._ _ _ _

____“Sorry for what?”_ _ _ _

____“That you met me; that I made things less simple.”_ _ _ _

____“No. It is--you are--the best thing that has ever happened to me. The very best. It’s you.”_ _ _ _

____Eve was blown away by the statement, and responded simply by squeezing her hands tighter. They rested in silence again, and Eve’s eyelids grew heavier and heavier. Villanelle seemed to notice, because she gently rolled Eve over onto her side, ignoring her weak protests, and snuggled up against her back, Big Spoon style._ _ _ _

____“Go to sleep, Eve. I’ll stay awake for a while, just in case.”_ _ _ _

____“Are you sure?” Eve asked unconvincingly through a yawn, and Villanelle smirked._ _ _ _

____“Goodnight Eve,” she responded. Her knees behind Eve’s, face pressed against the back of her neck and her mane of black curls, hand resting on her stomach, Villanelle stared into the darkness and simply breathed in her smell as she dozed off._ _ _ _

____When finally it seemed that Eve was totally asleep, Villanelle whispered, “I love you.”_ _ _ _

____And from the depths of sleep, without consciousness or self-consciousness, Eve muttered back, “Love you too, V.”_ _ _ _


	2. Just Stay With Me Now

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all the kind reviews of the last chapter! I'm still feeling out where precisely this will go, but I'm glad you're all along for the ride with me. :) Let me know what you think of this chapter, reviews are love!

Eve regained consciousness with such abruptness that for a moment she thought an alarm had gone off. But the room around her was pitch black and quiet, the only sound and light a vague haze filtering in through the window from the street below. She turned over and saw that Villanelle was asleep, curled into a cat-like ball under the blankets with just the top of her blonde head visible.

She cast a disoriented eye over to the clock on the bedside table--4:07 AM. Figuring she could get a few more hours’ sleep, she closed her eyes and settled back down into the pillows, only to be awoken by the jingle of her phone not ten seconds later. She picked it up without looking; there was only one person she assumed would call at that hour.

“Hello Eve,” Carolyn’s voice said on the other end of the line in an inscrutable tone. “I’m sure I’ve awoken you, so I’ll be brief. Do not return to your apartment. If my sources are correct--as no doubt they are--Helene has sent another of her employees there looking for you, or a sign of where you’ve gone to.”

“Why me?” she asked, but she already knew the answer.

“Oh, Eve,” Carolyn said, almost pityingly. “You had to know your close association with Villanelle would catch their attention eventually. I daresay they’re looking to reacquire their asset, and if you could not bring them to her, you would be used to bring her to them.”

“I see,” Eve said.

“I’ll be in touch in a few hours to have you taken to a safehouse.”

“We’ll be waiting,” Eve said. Carolyn cleared her throat.

“It wasn’t an invitation for two,” she said. Eve pressed her lips together.

“I’m not leaving her,” she said resolutely. She heard Carolyn sigh through her nostrils, the way she did when she was particularly irritated.

“Eve, Villanelle can take care of herself,” she said in clipped tones. 

“Then I’m probably safer with her,” Eve said. There was a pause on the line.

“You know she’ll leave you to fend for yourself eventually, Eve,” she said, and there was a definite tone of pity in her voice. “You know what she is. She’s not capable of putting someone else’s needs above her own. When it comes time for her to choose between you and herself, she will choose herself with dazzling speed.”

“You’re wrong,” Eve said. Carolyn let out a soft laugh.

“I’ll be in touch.” The line clicked off. Eve stared down at the home screen of her phone, lips pursed together.

“Your boss?” Eve jumped, dropping the phone out of her hand, and the next moment the lamp on Villanelle’s bedside turned on.

“She’s not my boss anymore,” Eve corrected. 

“What did she want?” Villanelle pulled herself up into a sitting position, as did Eve, running her hands through her hair and sighing.

“For me to leave you here and go to a safe house,” she said, figuring blunt honesty was the best policy. 

“Oh,” Villanelle said. “Well, that would be the smart thing to do.”

“I’m not going,” Eve said. Villanelle’s eyebrows raised. “I’m not leaving you alone.”

“I can take care of myself, Eve,” Villanelle said, much to Eve’s annoyance.

“I know that,” Eve said carefully, “but with Konstantin in the wind, you need somebody on your side.”

“I don’t need anybody,” Villanelle said.

“What’s with you?” Eve asked, suddenly too irritated to bite her tongue. 

“I don’t want you under the delusion that I can’t function without you,” Villanelle said. “I’ve been taking care of myself since I was a little girl, Eve. I didn’t need Konstantin’s protection, and I don’t need yours.”

“Fine,” Eve said, feeling a little hurt. “Maybe I should go with Carolyn, then.”

Villanelle’s face was set into hard lines, but her eyes were soft and afraid. Seeming to know that, she turned her gaze resolutely away from Eve, though her hands had fistfuls of blanket balled up tightly in them.

“I’m sorry,” Eve said suddenly. “I didn’t mean that. I don’t want that. I just… ah, why do you have to be so difficult?” she asked the air. 

“I don’t know!” Villanelle said, suddenly loud. “I just… I am uncomfortable with the side you saw of me last night. I don’t want you to think I’m needy.”

“ _Oh,_ ” Eve said, hitting herself in the forehead lightly with a palm. “Of course.” She was no longer angry, and actually felt a bit badly that she hadn’t realized what was happening sooner. She reached her hand out and placed it on top of one of Villanelle’s fists. She twitched as if to pull away, but didn’t. “It’s okay to be vulnerable, to need people sometimes. That’s normal. I don’t think you’re… going soft, or incapable, or need protecting. Trust me, I know you don’t need my protection,” she said, and the emphasis on the word ‘know’ made Villanelle smile even as she continued looking in the opposite direction. “Sometimes you need protecting from me, even.”

“You did stab me,” Villanelle said.

“I know,” Eve said patiently. “I won’t do it again.”

“It hurt,” Villanelle said, now definitely smiling.

“So did being shot, subject-changer,” Eve said. “I know it’s not comfortable, but if this is going to work, you will have to let me in once in a while.”

“Oh, I’ll let you in…” Villanelle began in a raunchy tone, and Eve rolled her eyes.

“Again with the subject-changing,” she said. Villanelle sighed, a pouty look on her face.

“It’s hard,” she finally allowed. “I did not grow up with parents who loved me, you know. I spent most of my childhood in Russian orphanage. There was no being vulnerable there.” She went quiet then, and her face changed, as though darkened by some inner horizon Eve could not see. “Nobody has ever loved me, except my brother, Pyotr.”

“Was he in the orphanage with you?” Eve asked, not knowing if she should push the subject or leave it alone.

“No,” Villanelle said, in such a startling tone that Eve did not dare ask any more about her time there. They sat quietly for a few minutes, Eve’s hand still on Villanelle’s, until finally she spoke again.

“I’m sorry,” Eve finally said. “I can’t change what happened then, but I’m here now. So let me be.”

“I will try,” Villanelle said, unballing her fist finally and holding Eve’s hand in hers.

Eve’s phone rang again, causing both of them to jump. It was Carolyn again.

“Yeah?” Eve said as she picked up.

“I’ll be at the Travelodge in half an hour to pick you both up,” she said. Eve smirked.

“Okay,” she said. Carolyn hung up.

“Get dressed,” she said to Villanelle. “Our ride’s coming in half an hour.”

“Our ride?” she asked. Eve smiled.

“Yes, our ride,” she repeated. “If you’ll agree to it.” Villanelle seemed to fight some brief inner war with herself, pursed her lips, then nodded.

“I go where you go,” Villanelle said.

They rose and dressed quickly, then spent twenty five minutes sitting in silence on the bed, watching the clock. The far reaches of the eastern horizon were just beginning to touch with dusky purple and pink when they descended the two flights of stars back down to the lobby, and found Carolyn standing just inside the door, hands in her coat pockets.

“Right,” she said as they approached her. “Let’s get cracking, then.”

Riding in the back of the town car with Villanelle, Eve’s eyelids grew heavier. She remembered when she was a little girl, riding the bus back across town to their apartment with her mother--the drone of many wheels and snippets of conversation in mostly Korean around her, she always fell asleep, curled up in her seat with her head in her mother’s lap. They often didn’t get home until after dark, when Eve would hear her mother whispering _“Il-eonayo”_ in her ear as she shook her shoulder lightly, her words nearly drowned out by the chuff of the bus’s air brakes. In this moment of exhaustion, she felt like she was seven years old again, falling asleep to the melody of her old Los Angeles neighborhood around her. Before she could even finish the thought, she was asleep again.

“Eve,” a voice said, and she felt a hand on her shoulder, shaking her gently. “Eve, we’re here.”

Her eyes snapped open. It was full daylight outside, and the quiet around them made it clear that they were no longer in London. 

“Good morning sleepyhead,” Villanelle whispered, smirking and unbuckling her seatbelt. 

“Oh, geez, I’m sorry,” she said, rubbing her eyes and yawning. “I didn’t mean to fall asleep.” She opened the door and stepped out into a wide country garden; the air was crisp and smelled sweet around them.

“Not at all,” Carolyn said, straightening her coat. “I prefer the absence of smalltalk on a long ride myself.” Eve looked down the earthen drive, which sloped towards a thatched cottage surrounded by a small stone wall, set at the base of a hill that rolled out and up behind it, almost to the limit of sight.

“Where are we?” Villanelle asked.

“I won’t tell you that, precisely,” Carolyn answered perfectly pleasantly. “I will tell you that you’re in the home counties, far enough into the countryside that I doubt anyone will come across you two by accident. Just as you’d like it, I imagine,” Carolyn said, giving Eve a peculiar look. She furrowed her brows at her a little puzzledly, following her in through the heavy wood front door.

“This is Mr. James Healy, he’ll be here with you for the duration of your stay,” Carolyn said, gesturing towards a tall, pleasant-looking man who shook all of their hands in turn. “I’ve taken the liberty of having some of your things collected for you, Eve, once I was sure we wouldn’t be interrupted by any unwelcome guests.”

“Thanks,” she said, taking note of a full duffle bag on the floor of the sitting room next to a squishy red couch.

“Villanelle, I apologize, I had no idea where I might find the same for you, so I simply packed an extra bag from Eve’s residence. I daresay you’ll find that suited to your needs.” Once again Carolyn gave Eve a pointed, and peculiar look. Eve looked over at Villanelle, whose face indicated that she had also noted Carolyn’s odd behavior and understood it no better.

“Oh, and while Jess was there, she was served these by a delivery service,” Carolyn added, handing a thick manila envelope to Eve. “Bless his soul, the poor deliverer was nearly blasted to pieces.”

“Thanks,” Eve said, further confused until she saw the heading of the packet as she withdrew it from the envelope. “Oh.”

They were divorce papers.

“Well, I suppose I had that coming,” she said, and to Villanelle’s pleasure she did not sound particularly put out about it. 

“Yes, well,” Carolyn said, continuing right past that potentially awkward moment. “I wish I had more information for you at the present, but alas. Your phones won’t work here, scramblers, you know, but I’ll reach out via Mr. Healy when I have an update.” With that, she let herself out.

“I’ll let you ladies settle in,” James said, pointing towards a hallway visible from the sitting room. “Bedroom’s down the hall on the left, bathroom on the right. I’m set up on the other end of the house, so do give a shout if you need me.” Eve nodded and thanked him, and then he was gone as well. She hoisted the duffle bag over her shoulder and they found the bedroom as promised. She dropped the bag on the floor and sat down on the end of the bed. Villanelle sat tentatively next to her.

“Are you sad, about the moustache?” she asked. Eve smiled a little, and shook her head.

“You know, I thought I would be,” she said. “But honestly, I’m just kind of relieved that it’s over.”

“Oh,” Villanelle said, clearly not knowing how much pleasure was polite to display over a love interest’s marriage imploding.

“I used to blame you, you know,” Eve said. Villanelle waited for her to continue. “For me and Niko falling apart, I mean. But I spent a long time on a plane to Poland thinking about it, and I realized that something between us already had to have been broken, for us to have unraveled so quickly. Maybe you put the last nail in the coffin, but it was already dead.”

“He was too normal,” Villanelle said. “He couldn’t have made you happy forever. Not once you realized you weren’t as normal as you thought you were.” Eve smirked.

“I suppose you’re right,” she said, standing up. “I’m going to take a shower.”

“Good, you stink,” Villanelle said, making Eve laugh, really laugh, for the first time since the prior night’s events. She laughed all the way out of the bedroom and into the bathroom, closing the door behind her.

When she came back half an hour later, wrapped in a towel, Villanelle was already asleep again. Her old clothes were in a pile at the foot of the bed, and Eve was tickled to see that she was in one of Eve’s oversized t-shirts. Not stopping to analyze the feeling of warmth spreading through her chest, she changed into fresh clothes and perused a battered bookcase on the adjacent wall until she found a promising cover.

“You’re not supposed to judge their covers, you know,” Villanelle’s muffled voice said from the bed. “There’s a whole saying and everything.”

“Go to sleep,” Eve said, swatting her playfully with the book as she slipped into bed alongside her.

“I am,” she said, and pulling the blanket up over her shoulder, wrapped up in a silly t-shirt that smelled like Eve, she closed her eyes and did just that.


	3. You Can Stay and Watch Me Fall

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your wonderful reviews! They bring me joy. :) I hope you like where this is going, I'm flying by the seat of my pants with the plot here. Let me know what you think!

Eve didn’t realize she had fallen asleep in the bed, book fallen forward onto her chest, until she woke up what appeared to be hours later. She set the book aside and rubbed her face vigorously, wondering if she would ever have what approached a normal sleep schedule again, then looked around and realized Villanelle wasn’t in the room. She reached over and felt the other side of the bed--it was cold. How long had she been asleep, and how long had Villanelle been gone?

A small thread of panic began to worm its way through her gut as she got out of bed. She didn’t want to believe that Villanelle would leave her here, to go only God knew where, but there was also a part of her right around the scar in her chest where she believed that she might. She pulled a sweater on and walked down the hall, peeking into empty rooms to see where Villanelle might have gone.

She was beginning to feel real fear until she entered the kitchen and looked through the glass of the back door. Finally the familiar blonde, to whom she found herself inexplicably and unstoppingly drawn. She was curled up in a chair on the back patio, arms wrapped tightly around herself as though she were cold. Eve removed an ancient-looking afghan from the back of the red couch in the living room, then let herself out through the back kitchen door. Villanelle did not turn around when she heard the door open, but Eve could tell from the slight shift of her body that she knew she was there.

“How long have you been out here?” Eve asked as she draped the afghan around Villanelle’s shoulders. Villanelle shrugged, looking over at Eve as she took the seat next to her at the small bistro table set on the old, weather-worn bricks.

“A bit,” she said. “You were asleep.”

“I thought you were too,” Eve said. 

“I did, for a little bit,” she said. “I don’t need much sleep. Too much makes me groggy.”

“That is not a problem I have,” Eve said with a smirk.

Then there was quiet as they looked out over the back garden walled in with stones, which reached up, up the hill, becoming a pasture dotted with sheep and scattered clusters of trees. The sky above them was a dark, brewing slate grey, clouds roiling as the wind carried them, lifting Eve’s hair with each gust. Villanelle’s silky blonde hair tossed about in the wind made her look especially remote, and Eve noted, devastatingly beautiful.

“I like the weather like this,” Villanelle finally said, breaking their silence.

“This is the right country for you, then,” Eve said. Villanelle nodded.

“It makes me feel peace,” she said slowly. “It looks how I feel inside, and when they match, the inside and outside, it feels right.” Eve didn’t know how to respond to that; it was unusually candid for Villanelle, and quite unlike her at all to put words to an emotional state other than anger. Eve waited to see if she would continue, but she didn’t offer anything else for several more minutes.

The back door opened, and James Healy stepped outside.

“Mrs. Polastri? Telephone for you, love,” he said, jerking his head towards the inside.

“I’ll be right back,” Eve said, rising from her seat and following him to the kitchen where an old-fashioned, corded telephone hung from the wall, handset resting on the kitchen counter. She gave it a bemused look.

“More secure. Can’t be traced to a location like cell phones,” James said, answering Eve’s unspoken question. He stepped out of the room and Eve picked it up and brought it to her ear.

“Yes?”

“Eve, it’s Carolyn.”

“Any updates?”

“Yes, and not good ones I’m afraid,” Carolyn began. “They’ve definitely got people waiting for you at your home, so you won’t be able to return until this is resolved. It seems they’ve decided to stick to the plan of capturing you to lure Villanelle to them, since they don’t believe they’ve got a chance at finding her. I don’t think they’ve realized yet that you’re together elsewhere and staying away, which is all the better for us.”

“Okay,” Eve said, “so what’s next?”

“Right now we’re working on cultivating information about Helene’s whereabouts and motives--specifically, what does she want with Villanelle. Does she simply want her employee back? Is she angry about the killing of the protege Rhian? How angry? Angry enough to kill her, or you? These are the questions that need answering presently.”

“You’ll want to talk to Villanelle, then?” Eve asked. There was a pregnant pause before Carolyn spoke again.

“No, Eve,” she said stiffly. “I don’t want Villanelle involved.”

“Why not?” Eve asked. “Isn’t she the best source of information about Helene and the Twelve that we’ve got?” She heard Carolyn sigh on the other end of the line.

“Eve, there are some things you don’t need to know right now,” Carolyn said with a hint of obscurity. There was another pause, and then, “Suffice to say that one, she is not a member of the British intelligence service, nor is she a former member; and two, being quite frank, it is very likely that acting in your own best interests will, sooner than later, directly conflict with your instinct and desire to protect Villanelle from harm. The less involved she is in that process, the better.”

“What are you planning to do?” Eve asked, working to keep the edge of anger and fear out of her voice.

“Eve, I have tried my best to prevent you from making the same mistakes I made with Konstantin,” Carolyn said, almost quietly, as though she did not want to be overheard. “But you seem determined to make every single one of them. I am telling you that before this is over, you will have to make decisions that will endanger Villanelle’s life in order to save your own. She likely already knows this.”

“No,” Eve said plainly. “I won’t do that.”

“She would,” Carolyn said. “You know she would.”

“You don’t know her,” Eve said, feeling more than a little stupid to be having this argument yet again. She felt like she was a teenager, having the same repetitive arguments with her mother over curfew and dating, only this time it was a literal life or death situation.

“I know her psychopathology very well,” Carolyn said with an air of irritation, “which you are willfully blind to.”

“Are you thinking of a trade?” Eve asked, changing tack quickly. “Is that what all of this adds up to?” No response. Eve hung up the phone with a bit more force than she intended, and it bounced out of the receiver and hit the floor. Eve left it there, storming out of the kitchen with such a fury that when Villanelle turned around and saw her face, she immediately stood up, brows knit.

“What’s wrong?” she asked. Eve bit her lip, unsure of how much to tell her, if anything. The reluctance to speak, though, said enough to validate Villanelle’s already existing assumptions.

“Oh,” she said, “I suppose Carolyn has just told you how she plans to trade me to Helene in exchange for her calling off the dogs.” Eve opened her mouth, dumbstruck.

“How did you--?”

“When she called you back and said she would bring us both, I knew,” Villanelle said, reaching out suddenly and taking Eve’s balled up hand in her own. “She doesn’t care if I die; she just wanted to know where I was, that way she could find me when she was ready, like one of those lobsters in the grocery store.”

“I won’t let her,” Eve said forcefully, and it made Villanelle smile.

“Don’t be mad, pupsik,” she said, “she’s just doing what I would do if I were her.” Eve chose to brush past that similarity between Villanelle and Carolyn.

“We’ll find a better way,” Eve insisted. “You’re not going anywhere.” Villanelle smiled and reached out to push a long curl out of Eve’s face.

“I have a better way,” Villanelle said. “I kill Helene before she kills the both of us.” Eve immediately frowned.

“No,” Eve said, dropping Villanelle’s hand and taking her by surprise. “I thought you said you were done killing people? That you wanted to change? Isn’t that why we’re here, because you don’t want to go back to that job, that life?” Villanelle frowned.

“I do,” she said. “Want to quit, I mean. I am quitting.”

“Then more killing isn’t the answer.”

“Eve, if I don’t kill Helene then she is not going to rest until she has both of our heads on spikes by the front door. I have to do this if we want to stay alive, and I really, really want to stay alive.”

“When has ‘one more kill’ ever stopped any of this shit from spiraling, though?”

“You’re being naive,” Villanelle said, and if Eve hadn’t been so frustrated she would have heard the hurt under Villanelle’s words. But she didn’t.

“I’m not being naive, I’m being honest,” Eve said forcefully. “The killing people has to stop. I thought you wanted to change.”

“I am changing, Eve, but there has to be just one more.”

“How many times will there be ‘just one more’?” Eve asked, crossing her arms. “Why do I feel like there’s always going to be ‘just one more’?”

“You know who I am and you know what I do,” Villanelle said coldly. “If that upsets you, then ask yourself what you were trying to change when you stood on an old woman’s chest and crushed her lungs?”

Eve opened her mouth angrily, but no words came out. Villanelle stormed off, slamming the kitchen door closed behind her and leaving Eve standing lamely on the patio, arms still crossed, mouth still open with an unspoken retort. She sat down on Villanelle’s vacated chair and stared out at the sheep for quite a while, occasionally wiping a hot, angry tear from her cheek; not moving until she felt the first few cold, angry raindrops release from the roiling thunderclouds above.

When she came inside the phone had been placed on the cradle again, and the house was completely silent save for the ticking of a clock somewhere in the living room. Eve walked down the hall to the bedroom they were staying in, and found it empty. On her pillow was a folded piece of paper. When Eve saw this, her stomach abruptly filled with lead. She picked it up with a hand that shook in spite of herself, as though it already knew what the words would say.

“Eve,

I can’t let them hurt you. I’m sorry.

xx V”


End file.
